In 1725, a delegation of Native American chiefs went on a diplomatic mission to France. It was to strengthen their alliance with the European country after the founding of the Louisiana colony.
The leaders gave speeches pledging loyalty to the royal court, hunted with King Louis XV, and gifted the court with cultural objects such as minohsayaki (Miami-Illinois for "hide paintings") to reinforce their good will.
Fast forward 300 years, the Palace of Versailles is holding an exhibit from now until May to highlight this little-known historic diplomacy.
Staff from Miami University’s Myaamia Center lended their expertise to make the exhibit a reality.
The scene is the 1700s
The Myaamia Center is an educational and cultural initiative of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma.
The Miami Nation, along with the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, the Quapaw Nation, the Osage Nation, the Otoe–Missouria Tribe of Indians and the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, partnered with French museum curators for the exhibit called ‘1725. Native American Allies at the Court of Louis XV.’
“...the early 1700s is a really exciting place to engage in storytelling and use these ancient objects [and] ancestral art to draw in a museum-goer into understanding the importance of international diplomacy between Indigenous nations and European nations in the past,” said George Ironstack, assistant director of the Myaamia Center and citizen of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma. Ironstack served as a consultant for the exhibit.
“And of course, the ongoing importance of these relationships today,” he said.
American Indian nations reclaiming traditions
The center’s participation in the exhibit is a result of their work with the Peoria (Peewaalia) Tribe.
The two closely-related tribal communities collaborate in the restoration of their traditional practice of animal hide painting through a multi-year research initiative, “Reclaiming Stories.”
Representatives from the Peewaalia and Myaamia tribes, including Ironstack, made multiple trips to Paris to study four minohsayaki held at the Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac.
“Most of us have been looking at photos of these hides since we were kids. But there's unsurprisingly something very different about being with the hides in person, being able to touch them, and very carefully, with the help of staff, actually moving the hides around,” Ironstack said.
It was likely the women of their communities that cleaned, tanned and designed the hides to perfection – skillfully enough that the hides have maintained their quality for 300 years, Ironstack said.
“We didn't need trade with Europeans to produce this art…I talked to our own community as we work on revitalizing this form of art–it's an art that we can say comes from our land. It comes from the places we've lived for generations. And it has a different kind of power then,” he said.
One of the minohsayaki, a ceremonial bison hide robe the Peewaalia tribe gifted to the French during their 1725 visit, is featured in the exhibit.
The exhibit will also show a recovered portrait of a Myaamia individual, available to view to the French public for the first time.
This ancestral art can help tell the story of overlapping histories with the French, Ironstack said.
“The objects will continue to be the center of diplomacy. It's just the kind of diplomacy has changed. Now the diplomacy is around cultural revitalization, storytelling and education rather than around alliances for warfare and trade, but the diplomacy and relationships can continue forward,” he said.
Ironstack said the tribal nations hope the exhibit can travel to the U.S. at some point in the future.
